George E Westinghouse High School - Sketch Book Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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than it was possible to bury them, their bodies were thrown into the heat of the blazing sun for the vultures to feast upon. Driven by desperation, he managed at last to escape to New Orleans, but here an epidemic of the same pestilence was raging. Stricken with the malady his skin turned a Chinese yellow. Ex- citing were his experiences as a soldier in the Spanish-American War. During the last fifteen years he had lived alone in a little shack in this forest, earning a pittance by laboring in a coal mine. Then he talked of wood-craft and of his wild creature neighbors. He knew, too, where the arbutus trailed and where the wild grape vined. Tutored not in books but in nature, he sat there a part of the forest, and I hung on his words as did Paul on those of Gamaliel. When thickening shadows warned of the approach of evening, slowly we arose and returned down the soggy trail. Again we picked berries, this time close to the river. When his pail became full, he helped me with mine. Then both buckets brimming, he led the way to the surveyors' line-a big, broad trail cleared of underbrush, which passed straight as an arrow from the very bank of the river up the steep mountain side to the overgrown railroad. Up we went. It was like climbing a gigantic staircase, the immense rocks forming the steps. Leaving the abandoned railroad, we plunged into the silent pine forest, where he, in turn, followed me. In the blue mist of evening where the pine wood meets the young maple growth, the berry picker passed from my life as abruptly as he entered. But as I trudged on alone, I knew he had helped me glean something other than berries. ALBERT MARSHALL. . . Day-Dreams Varied are the day-dreams that stray in and out of the mind. Youth and age build their castles in the air from diverse designs. Day-dreaming is amusing and simplest in a child's life, but grows in complexity with maturity. Most irregular and abstract is that of the poet. About the only time that a child lets his mind slip off into deep thought is during school hours, because after school he puts his day-dreams into motion. With my head bent toward my book, I have often seen myself winning fifty, seventy-live or even a hundred marbles from the boy who habitually won my live or six, or beating him I detested most in a light with the whole school cheer- ing me. Many a time, after seeing a movie, I have pictured myself in the hero's place on a fleet horse capturing six bandits single-handed or in a long low car winning a big race. Often I imagine myself in Babe Ruth's shoes at bat with a home run needed to win the final world series game, in Colonel Lindbergh's, about to fly from New York to Parisg or in Bill Tilden's, with a championship match at hand. I thrill with the ecstasy of accomplishment and applause, and I am very famous as long as my day-dream lasts. But how many of most thrill- ing dreams have ended abruptly by unexpected questions from teachers--sworn enemies of day-dreams. ' As I grew into young manhood, my reveries became less concerned with pysical prowess and skill. In the visions of eighteen, pretty women and large sums of money play major parts. Have you ever dreamed of becoming an heir to some unknown relative's fortune? Have you ever fancied yourself saving the Fourteen

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A Day With a Berry Picker liarly one August morning I started out to pick berries. While the dew was still heavy on the grass and bushes, I left the fields behind me and entered a promising young maple wood. From here I tramped down a deserted road, brown with a carpet of pine needles. It led to an abandoned railroad, overgrown with blackberry bushes, weeds, sumacs, and ferns. Then down the rusty red rails I wandered for several miles to the berry patch. As far as the eye could see, it stretched, confined on only the lower side by the black Clarion River. It lay on a mountain-side, grown over with the after- math of a forest fire-the fire-cherry and the blackberry. Here and there a tall blackened tree trunk rose spectral-like high above the tangled mass of bushes. Intermingled with the blackberry were clumps of tough mountain laurel. The treacherous mountain-side, covered with immense charred logs, loose rocks, and slash offered but a precarious foothold. I began to pick at the top where the berries were thickest, with the inten- tion of continuing until I reached the river. They were big, long, and juicy- but what stumbling, falling, and slipping to secure them! Even the berries ripped my pants and shirt, and cut my flesh! All this discomfort for a few blackberry pies or maybe some jam or jelly! The sun, glittering and relentless, rose gradually higher in the cloudless sky. My throat became more and more parched, and my garments, wet with perspiration, clung to me. I was still only half-way down, and the sun had become its hottest when suddenly I heard a rustling and then a crackling. Cau- tiously I investigated. A black cap caught my eye, then a tall man with drooping shoulders looked up. He wore a heavy black woolen shirt, open at the neck, and dark trousers. My eyes were attracted to his sweating creased face, to his dark dreamy eyes, and to his long pointed moustache. We greeted each other curiously. Then I asked him whether he could direct me to a spring. In reply he led me away from the tangle to a pine wood. Far in the pines along a sodden logging trail babbled a tiny, cool, clear mountain spring. I grumbled about the unbearable heat. He replied that it reminded him of the days he had spent in Central America. As we two sat resting beside the moun- tain spring, our feet reposing on the water-soaked logging trail, our heads shaded by the dark green pine boughs, and our hot bodies cooled by the damp air of the forest, I questioned him in regard to his life. With the proverbial slowness of a Swede and the reluctance of a man who has lived many years alone, he hesitatingly related a few of his experiences. His life was so full of heartbreaking hardships that it reminded me of the wild desolation of the berry patch. When he was just a youth, his parents died, and he was forced to leave his native land to make his way in the world unaided. First he became cabin boy, then a common seaman. Strange were his tales of the sea and of foreign customs. Ill-luck followed him when he! joined the French Canal Company in the eighties and went to torrid Panama. Here to his dismav he found the workmen dying off like flies from the dreaded yellow fever. He attempted to Hee but was unable to do so, for the French would not permit the steamship companies to take away their laborers. VVhen the men died faster Thirteen

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life of the most beautiful girl in the world, who turns out to be a millionaires daughter? You marry the girl, of course, and you show her father what a marvelous financier his son-in-law is by saving him from bankruptcy, and inci- dentally, by making a million yourself on the stock-market. Yes, you would be the happiest man on earth if it were not only a day-dream. The reveries of parents are less egotistical. I guess Mother's from the expressions in her eyes and her casual commentsg no longer do they concern herself but her children. She dreams that her son will become famous in an honorable profession, the happiest of bridegrooms, and the best of fathers. Sometimes she grows confidential and tells me of her desires. This usually happens when either is ill, or when we sit in the glow of the grate fire before the lamps are lighted. Father's day-dreams have less sentiment, he hopes to be able to boast to other fathers about the material success of his son. I know very little of what occupies a poet's mind, for I am not a poet, nor have I ever met one face to face. But from what some poets write, I am sure that their day-dreams are much more rarelied and abstract than are those of the average person. I believe that to Milton, in day-dreaming of the sweetness of heaven. distant spheres were more real than thelearth itself. Yet, since the mind of a lover owns some characteristics with that of a poet, perhaps I, too, may sometime experience day-dreams in rarefied atmosphere. I needs must if Mothers are to be realized. And then? Then the cycle begins anew. INIARIO MELARAGNO. Seekers of Freedom Through the open window comes a chill evening breeze. Involuntarily, I shudder. A vague uneasiness assumes delinite form as visions of bleak Russia, the land of my fathers, crowd upon me. Vilkiui is a small village in Russia just outside of the great commercial city of Kovno. VVhen my family lived there, many of its inhabitants were Jewish peasants. Although between them and the Gentiles much friction existed, no serious outbreak had occurred for many years. Then one day late in fall the village was thrown into terror by the sudden cry of the Cossacks, the Cos- sacksf' Into the town dashed the brilliantly coated darlings of the Russian army, mounted on the finest horse-Hesh in the whole country. They ransacked the pitifully meager stores of the villagers, they pillaged the winter's supply of grain and potatoes. Then ensued a frightful pogrom. Throughout Vilkiui arose a mighty wail of anguish. The cruel scenes were sickening. As a Jewish mother begged for the silken tallas of her son, a huge coarse bearded fellow held it tauntingly just beyond her reach. When, goaded by despair, she leaped to seize it, he felled her with one blow fof his hairy fist. Mamma, Mamma, gasped her terror-stricken child, trying to raise her. But she was dead. A gray-bearded rabbi was brutally flayed because he refused to eat the pig which a scarlet- coated rutfian had set before him. Panic-stricken at such brutalities, the jews who could do so gathered their families and fied the village. With escape their only thought, the refugees cluttered the roads like sheepg they forgot that only those with passports might cross into the safety of Germany. Such was the exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago. Driven from place to place in their search for peace and freedom, braving new terrors to escape the ' Fifteen